


Follow Your Heart

by kotekru



Category: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Sweethearts, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Good Parent Amanda Grayson, Heartbreak, Homophobia, Making Up, Miscommunication, POV T'Pring, Pining, Star Trek Valentine Bang 2021, Teen Romance, Time Travel, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Culture, Vulcan Kisses, Xenophobia, again it's like two words, but like mild, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29374188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kotekru/pseuds/kotekru
Summary: Love for Vulcans is complicated. There are traditions and logic and the family to live up to, to serve. And there is the heart that wants what the heart wants. What happens when you add Vulcans, Humans, love, and time travel? Years- or centuries-long heartbreak may ensue.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Amanda Grayson, Michael Burnham & Spock, Michael Burnham & Spock & T'Pring, Michael Burnham & T'Pring, Michael Burnham/Ash Tyler | Voq, Michael Burnham/T'Pring, Spock/T'Pring (Star Trek), T'Pring & Amanda Grayson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Star Trek Valentine's Bang 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> Welcome to my first ever Big Bang contribution! It has been an awesome adventure and I'm so happy that i got the chance to experience it alongside [Marlin](https://marlinspirkhall.tumblr.com/) and HellaC! You guys rock! HellaC thank you for your amazing artwork, they came out wonderful and i'm so happy to be sharing them with this work. Marlin, thank you for all your help betaing and being our cheerleader!  
> I hope you enjoy this work! Don't forget to check out all the awesome pieces in this collection <3  
> Happy Valentine everyone!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When trying to figure out a title for this work I went looking for song lyrics and poems and came across the following work that ultimately the fic was titled after. It's such a wonderful coincidence to come across a poem that matches the story so well. I guess it was meant to be.
> 
> Follow Your Heart By John Posey
> 
> Father Time has brought us safely thus far  
> And our future is not tied to some distant star.  
> We’ve always had each other’s arms  
> That kept us together and safe from all harm.
> 
> Yet, all our yesterdays now stand alone.  
> And we know that tomorrow is not cast in stone,  
> Where once we saw happiness, now there is pain  
> It seems memories and heartaches are all that remain.
> 
> So, when life seems the darkest and troubles appear  
> And all the world’s dangers, alarmingly near,  
> Remember our love - let it play its part  
> And don’t be afraid to follow your heart.

It was close to her seventh birthday when T’Pring was dressed in fine linens and soft, shimmery silks and taken to the house of the S’chn T’gai clan. She had of course heard of the boy who lived there, the one with the human eyes, although at the time she didn’t understand what any of that meant.

T'Pring, so close to her next birthday and yet still so young was prone to tantrums, like any other Vulcan at that age. Which is why upon hearing of the reason they were to visit the strange family she decided it was entirely logical to sit in the foyer with her silly dress gathering endless stains and absolutely refuse to move at all.

It is understandable of course, finding out that one was to be betrothed to a boy one has never seen would be very much hard for anyone. Especially little girls so close to seven.

At last T’Pring’s mother had enough and simply picked her up like a child, which was an insult to injury, and simply carried the angry girl to the hovercar without a word.

T’Pring knew her mother, T’Rona, well enough by then to understand that she could either control herself and do as told or she would face her mother’s scorn and disapproval for weeks to come. Bringing shame to the family name was not tolerated in their house; illogical emotionality and failing to adhere to traditions were a quick way to become an embarrassment and earn punishment.

It was with great reluctance that T’Pring followed her parents inside the beautiful home of the S’chn T’gai clan. She barely paid any mind to the couple that greeted them, her only concern was the strange boy hiding behind them. He seemed small and angry, which T’Pring understood entirely of course.

The meeting went by a lot more unimpressively and uneventfully than any meeting of one’s future husband ought to. They were examined by the matriarch called T’Pau and their mental compatibility was determined, but the rest of it was for the adults.

Spock, the boy, T’Pring’s intended, led her to his room where they sat in complete silence by common unspoken agreement and contemplated their fates as anyone just before marriage would. T’Pring thought about telling her friends at school and how she had heard one of her older brothers mention that long distance relationships don’t work. She didn’t know if that applied to her and Spock, one could consider going to different schools distant. She decided she would have to ask her brother later.

T'Pring also tried to think about what Spock would be thinking about all this, but the only thing she could come up with was that he was a boy and boys didn’t like to play with girls and so their relationship was doomed to failure. 

Spock’s mother came to fetch them after a while, she looked really strange but T’Pring couldn’t put her finger on why, so she just dismissed it and followed her.

Their betrothal would be in a few months when both of them had reached an appropriate age. T’Pring tried to insist that they were of course much too young, and that Spock is shorter than her and so it would never work, but her comments fell on deaf ears. The only reaction her plea garnered was a quiet sound Spock’s mother made as she smiled. T’Pring later learned the sound was called a chuckle and Amanda made it because she was entertained.

The few months leading up to her inevitable inconvenience T’Pring spent obsessively learning about Vulcan bonds and mating. She looked for loopholes and criteria for exemption and found nothing that made sense. 

When the day came, and T’Pring was escorted again to the S’chn T’gai residence with her every living relative, she went dejected and quite resigned to it. She expected it would be a bore, her itchy silly dress annoying her to no end.

Spock was already waiting for her at the sands outside, looking just as indisposed and put upon as she felt. His family was spread around the clearing, severe looking old people in shiny dresses. Amanda and another little girl who had the same weird ears were the only people who didn’t look like they were listening to a lecture about early agriculture. T’Pring immediately decided they were the only sane people present and decided to pay them extra attention.

They both looked somewhat out of place, like even they didn’t know how they ended up here. T’Pring was endlessly fascinated by the girl, she had such an intensely curious expression on her face, she looked like she desperately wanted to ask so many questions but knew better.

Looking back, T’Pring could not recall much of the bonding. It must have been rigid and ritualistic with hundred-years-old ceremonial pomp. She remembers Spock’s hands that felt clammy in her own and the beautiful girl standing next to Amanda. 

The girl must have been somewhat older; she was much taller than Spock and herself. In the sweltering heat of the Vulcan summer she seemed like an oasis, T’Pring doesn’t really know why she thought that, but the feeling was immense. The girl wore the burgundy robes of the S’chn T’gai clan, the color matching her blush well. She had a wild head of hair, the curls dancing in the breeze like a halo around her. But most importantly, the girl would not stop looking at her. Through the whole ceremony any time T’Pring looked up she met the deep brown eyes of the strange girl. Any time she was required to pay attention to the ceremony and Spock she could feel the heat of her gaze bore into her.

Halfway through the ritual T’Pring decided that she must talk to the girl and spent the rest of the bonding thinking about how that would go. 

She imagined walking up to the girl, set shoulders and emotionless face inspiring awe in her as she walked close. T’Pring imagined asking her name, starting a conversation about something serious and logical. The long ritual however was not long enough for her to figure out what such a topic might be.

When T’Pau declared Spock her betrothed and she first felt the tickle of his mind in her own it threw T’Pring so off kilter that she entirely forgot any plans to talk to the girl at all. Indeed, she forgot anything else at all that wasn’t the intrusion in her mind, and Spock’s emotions mixing and clashing with her own. 

It was months later, on one of her obligatory visits with her betrothed that she was reminded of the day on the sands and the girl. 

T’Pring had been a regular guest at the home of her betrothed for the past months. Spock and she were taking lessons to learn how to shield their bond, which T’Pring was very invested in. That day she arrived a bit early, she greeted Amanda who was making tea in the kitchen, after a short chat with her she left to find Spock. She found him out in the garden, where Amanda said he would be.

Coming to the door that led out T’Pring stopped in her tracks when she saw Spock and the girl spending time under a large tree, clearly engrossed in their conversation. 

T'Pring has never been hesitant and her natural curiosity had led her into many similar situations with such unknown factors, jumped in head first as Amanda would say, but this time she made sure to take her time and observe before deciding on the best course of action. 

The girl was slightly taller than Spock still, and this time she wore blue robes making her look so pretty. Her hair however instead of the beautiful dense curls was smoothed into a small bun, making her look older than she probably was. She looked animated as she talked to Spock, hand gestures and facial expressions followed each other in quick succession as she spoke. T’Pring wished she could hear what she was talking about, she wanted to hear her voice.

Finally, her curiosity got the best of her, so she decided to approach them. Spock was the first to notice her, he looked up and T’Pring watched as his face, that was expressive and engaged moments ago, went blank. As she got closer the mental bleed-through got stronger and she could also feel as Spock worked to tamp his interest and joy down, trying to hide them away from T’Pring. 

The girl finally looked up when T’Pring stopped close to them. Similarly to Spock, at the sight of T’Pring the girl slowly hid away her emotions and pulled her whole frame tight and straight, as if she was preparing for a battle or an argument. 

“Greetings, T’Pring!” Spock finally broke the tense moment. Although perhaps it was only tense for T’Pring as she observed the two with an intensity, she herself was not familiar with previously.

T’Pring nodded to him in greeting, then asked, “Will you introduce us?”

Spock and the girl stood up and as they dusted their robes Spock gestured at the girl, “This is Michael Burnham, my foster sister. Michael, this is T’Pring, daughter of Solen, my betrothed.” He finished indicating T’Pring.

Sister. T’Pring was instantly jealous, and desperately trying to trump the feeling down, pushing it away like Spock did with his joy. She had always wanted to have a sister; her brothers were distant and boring, this Michael seemed the opposite of that.

“Michael Burnham.” T’Pring nodded to her to show her recognition before turning to Spock, “We should find T’Pau, the lesson starts soon.”

Without another word Spock started leading her back to the house. T’Pring followed him, looking back at Michael before they disappeared in the building. She looked beautiful in the afternoon sun, sitting under the tree, her posture slowly melting from the tightly coiled focus as she watched them walk away.

For the rest of the afternoon T’Pring was distracted, to the point where she could feel Spock’s frustration with her flooding in along with T’Pau’s disapproval the whole time. She was trying, but it was hard to share her mind with someone, even so superficially as they did. T’Pring preferred her mind to be her own. With her belligerence (and distraction) and Spock’s unknown biology establishing shields had been a hard process, and the more time they spent trying the more they resented each other.

If it wasn’t for Michael, who seemed to miraculously always be around when T’Pring came over, she was sure Spock and her would have gotten in a fight. T’Pring knew it was illogical, and she knew that she had to get used to Spock, but there were so many emotions and thoughts in the two of them that seemed irreconcilable that T’Pring worried for their future near constantly. 

When Michael was around though, Spock seemed calmer, and T’Pring had something else to focus on other than the bond. 

Michael always came up with the most fun games, too. One time they played something called tag, which Michael soon realized was a bad decision, since both Spock and T’Pring could outrun her easily. 

It devolved into very un-Vulcan giggles when Michael realized that she may not be able to outrun them, she could bring them down with her and they ended up having a so-called tickle fight on the living room carpet. T’Pring had never heard of such a thing and at first, she insisted that Vulcans are not ‘ticklish’ but she was soon proven wrong when after Spock she was tackled to the ground by an eager Michael. 

Sarek found them on the ground, all three of them in a heap trying to get as many laughs and giggles out of the other two as they could. To say he was not amused would be an understatement. T’Pring was promptly sent home, and she could hear as Sarek told off Spock for his ‘inappropriate displays’ and told Michael he expected better of her.

T'Pring got her own punishment when she got home, clearly Sarek had notified her parents of their transgression. She had to study the teachings of Surak for a week straight after coming home from school, essentially leaving her no free time before bed. 

After that T’Pring became cautious, and she absolutely refused to play any games, whether Surak approved or not, if she knew Sarek was home. 

Spock seemed to be of the same mind, it was only Michael who took some time to get the idea. T’Pring was sure it was Spock’s influence that after a while she understood and stopped trying to trap them into a game.

When Sarek was away though, all bets were off. 

Michael taught them about all these strange human things. They played hide and seek, at which Michael excelled, perhaps because of all the practice she had, or she was simply cleverer than the two Vulcans when it came to thinking like them. 

T’Pring’s favorite was when they played spies. She saw a documentary about espionage once and was already enamored with the idea before Michael suggested the game. The point was to retrieve something from a part of the house they were not supposed to go. They always chose a boss who had to come up with the mission and then the other two had to race each other to get the item without being noticed or caught. Spock always beat them, and T’Pring did resent him for being better at it than her, but T’Pring gave the best missions and was the best at saying things bosses do in stories.

It was always fun and some new game each time she came over, and it was the best part of T’Pring’s weeks when she could spend time with her two friends. 

That was another thing Michael taught them, the concept of friends. Vulcans didn’t need them since they had their work acquaintances and expansive families, but T’Pring liked the idea of friends because it allowed her to spend time with Michael. 

It was something of a guilty pleasure, they all knew that if their parents found out that they did such things together and lent themselves to emotionality so easily there would be dire consequences. They all knew the story of the improper Vulcan children who refused to learn logic and were excommunicated. They all heard about the fate of these savages and how they were destructive to the rest of their society. 

Their childhood flew by just like that, happy moments of playing and friendship with some shame and guilt to keep them on their toes. 

They were all slowly entering that awkward transition phase when their hormones started making changes to their bodies and their minds and they all dealt with it differently. 

Spock became angry and frustrated and he was hard to talk to and a menace to be around. Michael decided she had to become the paragon of Vulcans and took every possible measure to seem Vulcan, she took logic and emotionlessness to the extreme. 

T’Pring herself became volatile. She perfected the balance of doing rebellious, unwise things and always having a logical reason for these actions prepared. She became someone others feared because of her quick wit, sharp tongue, and her formidable logic that got her out of any tight spot with ease. 

She felt the intense anger Spock felt and she felt the same need Michael seemed to have that made her a perfectionist, but instead of letting either win she just used both to her advantage. In her parents’ eyes she seemed like a perfect Vulcan, great grades, good manners, excellent social standing, outstanding logical reasoning. But the moment their backs were turned she became everything they looked down on. 

Luckily the three of them balanced each other out. They didn’t let the others go too overboard and were there to support and keep each other safe. At school the other kids both hated and admired them, which was of course fine with them. 

When the first few rumors of kids exploring the world of intimacy started floating around things changed though. Michael became distant and snappish; she didn’t want to spend time with Spock and T’Pring and whenever she could she avoided them. 

T’Pring and Spock were in his room, no Michael to keep them on the straight and narrow. Spock was silently drawing something on his padd that he wouldn’t show T’Pring, so she was playing with some old game she found a few days ago. 

It had been bothering her how everyone was slowly learning about the world of intimacy, and how she had a perfectly okay betrothed who seemed entirely uninterested in the whole thing. It wasn’t like she really wanted to try those things with Spock, sure he was attractive in a way, but he was more like a brother to her than anything and she didn’t feel that way about him. No, it wasn’t necessarily because she wanted _him_ , it was more a curiosity of what it would be like at all. 

T’Pring had no illusions about her life, she knew that she would have to marry Spock when the time came and they would have a long and fulfilling marriage, but it would never be the kind of relationship that Sarek and Amanda had, and she was jealous and resentful. 

“Your thoughts are loud and distracting.” Spock finally told T’Pring. She knew he only got very small impressions and her emotions, so she didn’t worry that he snapped at her for her actual thoughts.

“I’m just thinking about relationships. Aren’t you curious about all the fuss?” she asked him.

Spock stopped in his tracks and put down his stylus. He seemed to be considering her words as if the idea hadn’t even occurred to him before.

She was just about to tell him to forget it when Michael came in, clearly angry but trying so hard to restrain herself. She plopped down on the bed next to T’Pring with such force she made the whole bed shake. 

“Distract me! What are you guys doing?” she asked immediately, burying herself in Spock’s pillows. 

“We were just discussing the rumors at school about certain people and the things they did.” T’Pring hedged.

“You mean how T’Kann and Rovan were caught kissing at the back of the lunchroom?” Michael asked enthusiastically, immediately perking up.

“T’Pring was just asking me about my interest in such activities, I have not had the chance to think about it.” Spock helpfully filled in Michael on the actual conversation they were having. 

T’Pring didn’t know why but it embarrassed her. It’s not like they never talked about such things, they were all curious and it was only natural. But this time she was angling for maybe persuading Spock into trying some of those scandalous things and Michael kind of ruined that.

“T’Pring and Spock sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Michael sang and started laughing. 

With how much Michael had been trying to act all Vulcan and proper T’Pring had begun to miss her laugh and so she took her time to take it in, the big smile on her face, the crinkling of her eyes and the shine of joy in them. T’Pring took the moment and held it close as Michael slowly calmed down.

Spock was of course annoyed and flustered as any little brother would be and promptly exclaimed “There will be no kissing!” and turned back to his art. 

T’Pring went back to her game and Michael joined her. They were having fun but T’Pring felt hurt and annoyed that Spock was so uptight about this whole thing. Who else was T’Pring supposed to try things with? She wanted to know what such a big deal with kissing was and as the afternoon progressed she got angrier and angrier with Spock. 

He must have felt it because he asked her to help him with something and cornered her in the kitchen. 

“Why are you so angry?” he asked without preamble. 

“Why won’t you kiss me?” she snapped back. “We are going to be married one day and its really insulting that you wouldn’t even consider it.”

He stopped mid movement and almost dropped the bowl of snacks he was holding.

“I don’t want to marry you.” He said quietly, unable to meet her eyes.

“What do you mean? We are bonded, Spock! We don’t have a choice!” T’Pring was furious and doing a poor job of hiding it, but it was for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t the rejection, or even any kind of hurt, she was just confused. It had never occurred to her that there were any other options, she always thought marrying Spock was a fixed point in her life she could never get around, which meant that there was a fault in her logic that she did not know about. 

“I will not marry you.” He repeated.

“But why? What do you mean?” 

“I’m sorry I haven’t told you before.” He said as he put the bowl down and approached her. “I like you and I’m sure you will be a good mate, but I have been thinking about leaving and joining Starfleet and that wouldn’t be fair to you.”

T’Pring could feel his sincerity and that he really didn’t mean to hurt her. She could also feel that there was more to it, something he wasn’t telling her, but she also knew that part wasn’t for her to know and left it alone.

“Would you be disappointed if I kissed someone else?” she asked finally, trying to get rid of the strange tension. 

They went back to Spock’s room and talked it through, and under Michael’s piercing gaze they came to the conclusion that if they were indeed never going to get bonded then T’Pring could do whatever she felt like. It was not unheard of for Vulcans to have relationships outside of their bonds or prior to them, so it wasn’t such a big deal.

Which is why T’Pring ended up about a week later at Spock’s house again, but this time two doors down in Michaels room. In her bed. With a very enthusiastic Michael on top of her trailing Vulcan kisses along her fingers. 

It all started so innocently. Spock was still at school and Michael suggested they watch some holos until he got back, hence the bed. 

The holo turned out to be a romantic movie about an earth wedding planner and an andorian bride to be who fell in love while planning the woman’s wedding to her groom. They were only a few minutes past the first kiss between the main characters and T’Pring was sweating under the collar thinking about kissing someone, when Michael accidentally brushed her hand against T’Pring’s. 

There was a tense moment of shock and fear and anxiety before they locked eyes and asked at the same time “Can I kiss you?”.

T'Pring had never been more grateful for a series of such small events as the ones that lead to her being kissed. The first brush of their fingers felt like an electric current that travelled all the way from her fingers to the very core of her. T’Pring knew she gasped, and she knew she saw mirth in Michael’s eyes, but she got entirely distracted by the sensations of their kissing. Finally, she understood why people liked doing this so much.

“Do you like it?” she asked Michael hesitantly when they parted for a moment. She wasn’t Vulcan so T’Pring didn’t know if it would feel the same for her, and she was becoming anxious that maybe Michael didn’t get as much out of it as she did. 

Before Michael could answer they heard Spock calling for them in the corridor. They jumped apart, embarrassed and feeling like they got caught doing something bad. 

When Spock found them moments later, they were awkwardly sitting at the two ends of Michael’s bed, not looking at each other or even Spock. 

It was very tense between them the rest of the afternoon and T’Pring didn’t even stay for dinner as she usually would. She needed to meditate. She needed to get herself under control because those few short kisses she shared with Michael were burning her up from the inside. 

T'Pring never imagined anything could feel like this. Her link with Spock had always been tenuous and weak, and her attraction to him was barely anything beyond aesthetic, so to feel such strong and overwhelming emotions from just a few kisses… T’Pring was confused and didn’t know what to do.

She had no one to ask, her parents wanted her to be a perfect Vulcan woman, a wife and a mother. For them T’Pring’s revelation would be unacceptable and she had no illusions about how it would be handled. She could see before her a future in a strained and distorted relationship they forced her into with Spock, all the ways her life would be over before it began and she would be reduced to nothing but a wife.

Sure her parents made the arrangement for her to be bonded to Spock, but it was never about her, nor Spock. It was always about political power, social standing, and about the family name. For years T’Pring ignored it. She pushed these thoughts aside because it all scared her, but now they were flooding her mind.

She barely remembered Amanda and her worried gaze as T’Pring left in a hurry, could never recall her way home or anything at all until the moment she finally lowered herself to her meditation mat and started sorting through the whole thing.

Women in Vulcan society had a peculiar role, especially in more politically important families. Regular people got to decide for themselves for the most part, and women and men were absolutely equal in all respects, but in families like T’Pring’s that was not the case.

Big families like her clan or the S’chn T’gais had a different, more traditional way. Men were expected to be outstanding in some way, they had to be leaders and scientists and politicians and women were expected to marry these important men and be good wives. They could of course have their own pursuits, but they were never allowed to outshine one of these men. They could never make decisions for themselves or choose their own path, from a young age they were groomed to conform and follow.

T’Pring resented that. She was her own person; she had her own life and her own dreams and the thought of being reduced to someone’s wife was insulting when she knew she could outshine almost anyone. 

Secretly she resented Spock (just a little) because he was given all the freedom she wasn’t. And she was jealous of Michael because she was raised by Amanda, a much more reasonable and shockingly often more logical person than her own mother.

T’Pring did love Spock as a brother and a friend, so she kept her frustration to herself. He was a great mind and she knew he would achieve great things and so it would be an honor to be his mate, but T’Pring didn’t want the life she would have as his wife. Being left behind so he could change the world, raising his children while he challenged the universe... it sounded awful.

It took her days of intense meditation, shielding her bond with Spock to the highest degree she knew how, and avoiding everyone for T’Pring to finally settle down.

She decided no one had to know that it wasn’t Spock she went to see, but his sister. No one had to know she would not marry Spock, or that she enjoyed kissing Michael. No one needed to know if she wanted to kiss her more, or if she had any feelings about her.

She knew Michael was mad at her, T’Pring understood that she hurt her by running away. When she went over to their house again a week later she wasn’t surprised when Michael avoided her for a whole hour before she let T’Pring be in the same room with her. 

They were in Spock’s room again, doing schoolwork and just spending time together. Usually Michael and T’Pring stretched out on Spock’s bed and annoyed each other as they worked, but instead of joining her Michael took Spock’s desk chair. It felt like a slap to the face, a physical pain that Michael chose to put distance between them. 

After a while Spock had enough of the tension, he pushed Michael out of the chair and told them to stop being dumb. 

Michael and T’Pring shared a scared look, thinking they had been found out, but Spock continued. 

“I don’t know what’s up with you two, but it’s lame and you need to sort it out.” he said, turning towards them and watching as Michael finally took a seat on the bed.

Both girls tried to deflect but failed miserably and finally at Spock’s insistence they spilled.

“T’Pring kissed me and ran away.” Michael said dejected and angry.

Spock didn’t need to call T’Pring any names because she could feel his scorn through their bond. Immediately shame filled her to the brim and were she not Vulcan she knew she would cry. 

“I didn’t mean to. You interrupted us and I felt overwhelmed. I didn’t mean to be rude.” She finally confessed to Spock, eyes downcast and desperately grasping for emotional control. 

“Wait, so that’s why you have been so distant?” Spock asked, incredulous. “I was worried it was because of what we talked about.”

T’Pring was surprised but thinking back Spock too had been acting a little strange the last week. He was quieter and more reserved than usual. She didn’t get a chance to pander this further because Michael asked:

“Wait, did you tell her?”

“Yes, she had to know. It wasn’t fair to her.” Spock told her.

“Is that why you kissed me?” she asked T’Pring, looking sad.

“You kissed me.” T’Pring informed her. 

“No, you kissed me!” Michael said firmly. 

They probably would have continued arguing and started using increasingly logical and farfetched points to prove their case if Spock didn’t interrupt.

“Was it good?” he asked quietly, trying to shrink into his chair, but his curiosity won over his embarrassment. 

Both girls were taken aback. Spock had seemed entirely uninterested and T’Pring assumed he just didn’t care about things like that. Apparently, he just didn’t care to do them with her. Which she was ultimately glad for.

“I liked it.” Michael admitted just as quietly, T’Pring could feel her gaze on the side of her face. 

She turned to her and looked at Michael and told her just how much she liked kissing her.

They made up quickly after that, the dynamic of their little group went back to normal, with the exception of occasional talks about kissing and Michael and T’Pring sneaking away to ‘practice’ some more. 

The awkward teenage exploration turned into heavy make outs and ultimately led to the two girls exploring intimacy further as they grew older. T’Pring was worried that Michael didn’t really like her, or that it would get weird between them. She was afraid that people would find out or that Spock would resent them. But none of that happened. 

T'Pring shared many first with Michael over the years.

The first time Michael kissed her the human way T’Pring felt so overwhelmed from the sensations she had to hide in the bathroom for a long time until she could go back to Michael and do it all over again.

What started out as hesitant exploration and stolen kisses slowly turned into more. A small amount of introspection helped T’Pring realize that the reason she was so eager to find out about kissing was because she wanted to kiss Michael. It had always been Michael. 

From the first moment she saw her on the sands outside Shikarr T’Pring had felt drawn to her. The first time they talked felt like they were always meant to meet, and every single moment together since had been what T’Pring thought life is all about. So, it was no surprise that they fell in love. 

For a long time T’Pring kept this small revelation for herself, she was afraid that Michael didn’t feel the same and that she would take offence and never talk to her again. Selfishly she took her kisses and let them melt her heart. Sometimes when they shared a Vulcan kiss T’Pring could feel some surface emotions in Michael, sometimes it seemed like an echo of what she was feeling herself, but she never dared to hope. 

They were already in their last year of Learning Center education which meant two things. One, everyone was eagerly planning their future and thinking about what they would do next. And two, that T’Pring only had a limited time to be with Michael if she decided to continue her studies elsewhere, so she decided it was time to make her feelings known.

There were many things T’Pring expected but a lapful of Michael and giggled love confessions was not really it. She was happy of course, finally she could love Michael properly, as she deserved. And there were even more firsts to share among them. 

The only problem they ever had was the secrecy. Since T’Pring was still officially betrothed to Spock it would have been inappropriate for T’Pring to have a relationship with his sister, and T’Pring knew her parents expected her to remain faithful to her future husband even if it was an outdated custom. 

So, the three of them decided it would be best if they kept it a secret. Spock wasn’t keen on standing up to his father while he was still under his roof, and T’Pring dreaded her parent’s response to her dating anyone they didn’t choose for her. Michael was the only one of them that had nothing to lose and a heavy human heart to keep in check. 

T'Pring understood her need to reveal their relationship. She knew as a human Michael needed much more from the emotional side, and she tried to give everything she could to Michael to make her happy. Between four walls she let her guard down as much as she knew how and made sure Michael knew the depth of her regard, but she knew it put a strain on Michael to keep her affections hidden away.

To compensate Michael put on a strict Vulcan persona. T’Pring watched as their relationship took its toll on her and she started hiding behind emotional control and logic as much as she could. This change was painful to watch and it tortured T’Pring, but she reasoned that it would be different when they got older. When Spock left they could start dating officially, and she could help Michael get back to her human side and they could finally be happy.

When she started noticing the change T’Pring started taking greater risks. She would find Michael behind the learning center building during their lunch breaks and kiss her against the wall the human way. She started writing small notes of affection and left them in her locker. At lunch she would pull her chair close and press her thigh against her girlfriend’s and when they got gespar with their lunch every first day of the week she quietly put it on Michael’s tray because she knew she loved it and it made her day nicer. 

For a while all of this was enough, for a year they made do with stolen glances and secret smiles and sneaky kisses when no one was looking. T’Pring knew this couldn’t last so she desperately awaited the end of their learning center days. In a few short weeks school would finish for the semester, Spock would tell his parents that he is joining Starfleet- and T’Pring and Michael could finally be together, for real.

The three of them were spending the afternoon at an entertainment house and were arguing whether to play kal-toh or to try one of the new games they got this week. Spock was making a logical case for playing the game since he always beat them, while T’Pring was distracting Michael with kisses under the table where no one could see.

Thanks to her interference Michael lost and they ended up playing kal-toh for the hundredth time as they quietly talked about their plans for the future. 

Spock was excited to be going to earth, he had spent a few summers there with his mother and distant human relatives, but he never got to see much. 

Michael hadn’t decided what she wanted to do yet, she had been hesitant about going to earth with Spock since the VSA was by far one of the best schools for scientific discipline, but the idea of being around other humans after so long was tempting. 

T’Pring knew she herself would be going to the VSA; she had already filled out the paperwork and couldn’t wait for the admission meeting. 

She briefly considered what she would do if Michael decided to go with Spock, she thought about joining Starfleet, about how her life would turn out. She knew that her relationship with Michael would flourish and they would have a long and happy life together, but she feared that she wouldn’t get the chance to get the same fulfillment from even a scientific posting on a federation ship. 

She hoped she would never have to make the decision. 

Graduation came and went, the three of them celebrated by getting their hands on some chocolate and alcohol and sat out at the edge of the forge as the sun went down. T’Pring remembers that moment because Michael looked like a vision in the low light as she held her hand and watched the horizon with contentment radiating from her. She also remembers it clearly because that would be one of their last beautiful moments together on Vulcan. 

In the following weeks they were all busy with applications and interviews so the three of them barely saw each other. 

Then Spock refused acceptance into the VSA, finally breaking them out of this limbo. 

T’Pring was at Spock and Michael’s place, waiting with Amanda for news of her two children’s interview. T’Pring had been scheduled the day before and she already had been accepted. She knew Spock was still a little hesitant and she understood his need to see this through even if he left soon after. She was mostly focused on Michael though since she still hadn’t decided and T’Pring really wanted to go to the VSA with her.

Amanda was just pouring them a cup of tea when Michael arrived home. She still had her Vulcan façade in place so T’Pring couldn’t tell what happened, if she got accepted. Thankfully Amanda was there and immediately started questioning her.

Right before she answered T’Pring saw a glint of a smile in her eyes and she already knew the answer even as she heard Michael say, “I got in!” in a near shriek and launched herself at Amanda.

She watched quietly amused as Michael hugged her mother close and they both laughed as they held each other. T’Pring was so happy for her, and so proud.

Having finished hugging Amanda Michael then decided she gets to indulge herself and hugged T’Pring close too. The joy overflowing from Michael was so strong that T’Pring felt it as her own as she held her love close and let the happiness float around in her. There was of course an element of the forbidden to it, the public display sent a shiver through her alongside the warmth.

When they pulled apart it was hard to not notice Amanda’s knowing smile, but none of that mattered. They soon would be able to be together, to love each other properly as they had wanted for years. Soon T’Pring could kiss Michael when she was happy and comfort her when she felt down without anyone’s disapproval. 

They all sat at the counter, their tea going cold as they waited for Spock to be back. 

He arrived home not much later and as he entered T’Pring immediately knew he turned the VSA down. There was a confidence to his movements she had never seen before and even without their mental bond she knew he did the right thing for himself. 

Amanda seemed to know as well, she walked up to him and put a gentle hand on his arm, “You are leaving us, aren’t you?” she asked, already knowing the answer. 

The four of them spent the afternoon talking, reminiscing, thinking about the future. Amanda had a sadness to her, but they all knew that Spock needed to do this, so she smiled at him each time he looked at her. 

Sarek did not take to Spock’s decision so well, and after storming in the house at the end of the day he drew Spock aside and they all knew he was going to get the full disappointed father speech. 

T’Pring left soon after that, with an ache for Spock and a lightness to her steps because she was finally free. 

The next few days, as slowly Spock’s decision became the talk of the town, T'Pring felt on top of the world. Soon her parents would have no choice but to let her choose a new mate, she had already prepared a logical argument why that mate should be Michael. How they would still get the same social standing and political influence as if she married Spock. How she excelled at all she did and would no doubt become one of the greatest minds of the century. How their bond was already deep and enduring and a mental link would be indubitably successful and strong.

Three days after Spock set off the proverbial bomb T’Pring was just getting home from meeting Michael and spending the afternoon planning their futures together. Her parents were already home, gathered around the huge dining table with all of her brothers also present. They were clearly waiting for her. Today is the day then, she thought.

It was not the day.

Instead of asking T’Pring what she wanted or talking about the issue at hand they simply presented her with her new potential mate. T’Pring tried to argue, she tried to tell them that she wanted something else, that Michael was the perfect bond mate for her, but it all fell on deaf ears. 

Her brothers sat around dispassionately observing as T’Pring was sacrificed in the name of the family. Her mother took the time to dismantle her logic piece by piece and threw it back in her face with choice comments about her proclivities and choice of acquaintances, her words dripping with disdain unbecoming of any Vulcan. T’Pring’s father, Solen sat there silent, impenetrable, emotionless as he always did.

T’Pring’s brothers left soon after, leaving her alone with her parents. Solen left the room, probably to avoid the argument that he knew was brewing. 

T’Rona had always been a strong-willed person and she liked things to be done a certain way. She raised T’Pring to be obedient and silent, to follow the wishes of men around her, always defer to their judgement. The need to be perfect and to be outstanding and never bring shame to the family name was beaten into her at a young age. T’Pring spent the better part of her childhood and youth trying to measure up to her perfect brothers and her even more perfect mother and her standards. 

In the end there was no argument, no words exchanged at all. Mother simply gave T’Pring a look that told her everything she already knew. That she was a disappointment. That if she didn’t comply, she would be shunned. That she had been taught better and that she was nothing is she wasn’t part of this family. That if she stepped out of line again, if anyone found out she had been consorting with the human she would have no future here. 

T'Pring left the table broken and defeated. She had not thought that her world could crumble, and her future could fall apart with so few words. 

For days she did nothing but meditate and try to figure out ways around this situation, but she had already thought about this for years. She had already visited every possibility; she had thought of everything and still she lost. She was still not good enough; she still hadn’t deserved her freedom or future. 

She was also avoiding everyone and wouldn’t take any calls from Spock or Michael at all. Even Amanda tried to call her once, so T’Pring turned her communicator off. It was all futile. 

Three days later Michael showed up at her door, earnest and worried expression in place. T’Pring’s first instinct was to close the door in her face and keep avoiding her until she managed to win, until she managed to best her mother in logic and got to decide for herself, choose her own path, choose her own future.

But she knew that would not happen, she had exhausted every possibility and all that was left was to tell Michael. To break her heart.

T’Pring knew that Michael would try to fight it, she would try to convince her unswayable mother, she would suggest they run away, she would never give up. She would attach herself to T’Pring and keep fighting even as she knew it was all in vain. She had never been able to give up, to retreat, to leave someone behind that needed help. 

There was only one thing T’Pring could do, one thing she had to do. For Michael. She had to set her free.

She led Michael inside and asked her to take a seat in the living room. T’Pring sat opposite her because she knew she would not be able to do this if Michael was too close. If she could feel her warmth and her every sense was filled with her lover, she would never be able to let her go. 

For tense moments they were both silent. Michael already knew something was wrong, T’Pring could clearly see the worry etched on her face. Selfishly she took these moments to commit her to memory, she needed one last moment where she could just love her before it all fell apart. 

“My parents have appointed a new prospective mate for me.” T’Pring started finally. “It is not you.”

It took all of her years of practice with emotional control that she didn’t fall apart when she saw her reaction. In quick succession Michael went from shock, confusion, to anger, and finally landed on such a heartbroken expression that T’Pring felt like her heart was burning and flooding her whole body with despair. 

“Did you tell them about us?” she asked on a broken whisper.

“There can be no us.” T’Pring told her, no longer able to meet her eyes. 

“Run away with me!” Michael tried after a beat, scooting closer to the edge of her seat as if she could just take T’Pring right now and everything would be okay.

“No.” she answered with a sigh. “I cannot take your future away from you. It would be best if you left.”

T'Pring could barely say the words, she could still not look at Michael, so she didn’t see when her sadness gave way to something ugly and desperate before she said, “You are just going to throw this all away for your mother’s approval?”.

It was like a physical blow, she knew to expect the harshness and the self-defense, but it still hurt too much. T’Pring steeled herself.

“Our relationship cannot continue.” T’Pring tried to keep it unemotional, tried to make it as painless as she knew how but she knew it would hurt no matter what.

“Please, just talk to me! I can help, we can fight this!” Michael pleaded, her eyes shining and her face full of such earnestness that T’Pring could barely stand it.

With sudden clarity she understood that Michael would never let her go. “I don’t need your help. There is nothing we can do so please just leave.”

“Why are you doing this!? What did she say to you to make you do this?”

“This is my decision; I need you to respect it.” T’Pring told her, lying as much as omitting the truth. For a moment she thought about how pleased Michael would be that she did so, but then the absurd thought left just as quickly as it came and T’Pring just felt cold. 

She stood to leave, no longer able to stand the look of disappointment and hurt on Michael’s face, but as she passed her, Michael took her wrist and held it tight.

“Please!” Michael begged a final time, before she understood it. T’Pring could feel through the connection of their skin as the situation finally became clear in Michael’s mind and her confusion, hurt, and desperation turned into something terrible.

They got in an argument after that, Michael finally allowing herself to feel the full breadth of this pain and T’Pring saying cruel things so Michael would never think of her again. So, she would never wonder about what-ifs and could-have-beens, this was the only way for her to move on. 

For years T’Pring regretted her words, and desperately wished it could have gone differently. She dedicated herself to her work, to logic and reason. She swore that she would never be bested at either again and drew her shields so tight around her mind all her bonds were completely cut off from her, including Spock. She could no longer stomach his emotions and she hated how jealous she felt any time she felt him happy. 

At the VSA she saw Michael sometimes, tried to avoid her as much as she could, make way for her to be everything she never could have been at her side. For her own sanity she tried to avoid knowing anything about her. Only in her weakest moments did she go looking for information about how she was doing. 

On a particularly terrible day, when she saw Michael from afar and her heart was overwhelmed with love and anguish, she called Amanda. T’Pring expected to be told off, she expected insults and harsh words, but Amanda had always been better than that. She had always had a good heart, so when she picked up and realized it was T’Pring she just started quietly telling her about her children. 

She started with stories about Spock, how he loved Earth and Starfleet, how he grew into himself and how happy he was. Then she told her about Michael. She didn’t say anything personal; she didn’t tell her she was happy, she just told her about her courses and interests and all the ways she excelled at her work. 

Amanda’s stories made T’Pring equal amounts sad and happy. She was heartbroken that she couldn’t be there for Michael and she couldn’t stomach talking to Spock, but she was glad that she made the right decision, that Michael had the space to flourish and that Spock was happy.

That call finally helped settle her guilt and resentment and shame, and when she saw Michael again it didn’t feel like a stab to the heart anymore. It didn’t feel like her whole world was ending all over again. She could just observe her from a distance and watch her for signs of wellbeing and happiness and hoped she would see her smile again.


	2. Chapter 2

In secret T’Pring went to Michael’s graduation, she tried to stay in the back, out of sight, but like a magnet Michael’s eyes were drawn to her. She didn’t react, simply held her gaze for a long moment before she went back to accepting her awards and diploma. 

That was the last time T’Pring saw her. For a while she didn’t know where Michael was, she imagined her on a science vessel researching some strange phenomenon, surrounded by dispassionate Vulcans. The thought soothed her because she could imagine that she didn’t find new love and T’Pring could have her for just a little longer. It was selfish and ugly, but it was T’Pring’s only solace.

Then she heard that Michael wasn’t accepted into the program, she heard that she left for Starfleet and lived with Spock near the academy. T’Pring was happy for them, she was glad they had each other, she just wished she could be there with them.

Instead she lived her miserable days on Vulcan. Her graduation and immediate recruitment into the VSA as a researcher weren’t what she always dreamed they would be. There was no Michael to cheer for her and no recognition from her family. When perfection was the minimum, nothing you ever did could be good enough. Even when you surpassed every expectation and every peer you were still only just barely enough.

Two weeks later T’Pring received an official bonding proposal from her intended and the sour taste of her life got worse.

T’Pring did everything in her power to have the proposal fall through, but she could only delay the inevitable. Her only luck was that under Vulcan law she could only bond with a new mate if the previous one died or the bond got broken during pon-farr, which thankfully gave her time until Spock’s time to be her own person.

T’Pring tried to make the best of these years. She worked relentlessly and expanded her degree in information technology to applied robotics and nanotechnology which afforded her opportunities all over the federation. She spent a short time visiting laboratories across the quadrant and trying out space station life, but it never felt right and her work was more advanced than many of the fringe research she got the chance to oversee. 

Briefly she worked on a project called Control, which was the only place that challenged her, but T’Pring found the concept worrisome and when she brought her concerns to the admiralty her posting there was quickly terminated. Which gave her the final push to stop the moving around and find something more permanent. 

She took the first posting on a Starfleet vessel that was offered and spent a few short months doing something she finally truly enjoyed. And if it coincidentally also made sure that she wouldn’t be anywhere near Vulcan for the foreseeable future and thus prevent her marriage, then that is just how the universe works.

Those few months allowed T’Pring to discover who she really was and who she wanted to be. So far out of reach of her parent’s control and so alone without her bonds’ constant murmur she could finally see herself in a new light. 

Yes, she was everything her parents raised her to be. She was diligent and outstanding in her field, she was a paragon of logic and a formidable mind. But she was also everything they didn’t want her to be. She was intelligent to her detriment, she was strong willed and a force to recon with, and she knew her worth as a person, as an individual. 

T’Pring had her own ideas about what it meant to be Vulcan and what the purpose of life was, and it fell so far from her parents’ views she could not understand how they ever managed to get along at all. 

The people and the space she now had finally allowed her to understand that she didn’t need to serve her family. She didn’t need her mother’s approval, and her father’s scorn meant nothing among the stars. 

T’Pring thought much about her childhood and the wonderful friendship she had with Spock and Michael. She often wondered what could have been if she realized these things sooner, but ultimately decided that it was just unnecessary pain and stopped. 

With these realizations however came the bitter truth of her reality. T’Pring’s parents were too powerful, they had too much sway in this world and if she ever tried to stand up to them she knew they would go out of their way to take even her last bits of happiness from her. At least while she waited for Spock to finally reach his time, she could pretend to be free, and so T’Pring decided to finally throw herself into life the way she always should have.

She focused on her current relationships, instead of lamenting the loss of Michael and Spock in her life. 

There were many people in the labs she worked closely with, and she spent some of her time with them after shift as well. There were tired dinners with quiet chats after a long day, and game nights in the rec room where they quickly realized T’Pring is hard to challenge. 

She did lose a lot of chess games, because her human opponents usually chose tactics of ‘gut feeling’ over strategic planning. In poker however everyone quickly learned that not only does T’Pring have an outstanding ‘poker face’, she also reads people extremely well. Which baffled everyone and made T’Pring smile to herself and silently thank Michael and Amanda every time she won. 

There was of course Science officer Pascal, too. T’Pring would even call them a friend, although she would never admit to such a thing out loud. Whenever she didn’t spend her free time with her lab mates everyone knew she could be found with Pascal. 

It started as a professional relationship, Pascal taking T’Pring under their wings and helping her integration into the crew, but it soon became more. They often had dinner and T’Pring was truly content for the first time in years when she was with them. 

Pascal was a human and had many very human qualities, like loudness of thought and an affinity for physical displays of affection, but she enjoyed their presence a great deal, so she decided it was only logical to forgive them. 

Pascal was a wonderful companion and ever so empathetic. They often played with their long blonde hair which T’Pring found endearing. Their common acquaintance Nurse Kim told T’Pring about how it was a nervous behavior and that Pascal liked her too much. It was at her behest T’Pring decided to try and deepen their relationship even further, something she had only dreamed of for years.

Pre-bonding relationships were not uncommon on Vulcan and it wasn’t anything taboo, but T’Pring had spent a great deal of her life trying to appear perfect and infallible so anything like this would not have fit into her life at all. 

After Michael she burrowed herself even deeper into that perfect persona, she didn’t want to risk getting hurt again. Or hurting someone else. But now, she decided she wanted to try. She wanted to have a few nice experiences before she would inevitably bond with the man her parents had chosen for her, she just had to be honest and make sure Pascal knew everything to make their decision.

T'Pring procured some flowers as Kim instructed and was going to take them to Pascal’s room after shift, but she never got the chance. In the middle of alpha shift their ship was given new orders to rendezvous with the USS Discovery and T’Pring was reassigned involuntarily.

Instead of asking out Pascal T’Pring gave them the flowers as a goodbye and a thank you.

“I’m pleased to have met you, you have made my time here most memorable.” She told them regretfully, and allowed the tight hug she got swept up in. If she hugged them back just as tight, no one needed to know. 

The transfer was already a harrowing ordeal, packing up all her belongings in an hour was stressful enough. When the first sight that greeted T’Pring after appearing on the transporter pad on Discovery was none other than Michael Burnham, she decided the universe was playing a cruel joke on her.

Michael was clearly not expecting to see her either, she looked like it took her considerable effort to not react, or worse she was holding back her anger. After so many years T’Pring found she could no longer read her with ease and that fact felt like a physical pain in her chest. 

Thankfully there was no time for any emotionalism. T’Pring was quickly greeted by Michael who left as soon as she could, her cold and formal words were ringing through T’Pring for minutes afterwards. 

She was taken into roster and assigned quarters and some of the most hectic few weeks of her life began. She barely had time to catch her breath, not to mention dealing with emotions.

As T’Pring was walking to her very first shift aboard the Discovery another surprise walked towards her. At first, she barely recognized him, but then the knowledge that Spock was standing right in front of her crashed into her with full clarity and she almost dropped her padd. As far as reunions go T’Pring had had enough for a long time.

“I see you have arrived safely.” he simply said, his voice lacking the formality or animosity she expected. Spock had clearly changed, and it wasn’t just the beard.

So close to him keeping her shields in place was challenging and she couldn’t help but feel waves of emotion crashing into her from Spock. If she didn’t know better T’Pring would have taken it as a purposeful attack, a malicious act of an angry ghost from the past. But she did know better, and all the emotions she could perceive were warm. She had not realized just how much she had missed these connections and eased her control to bask in the feeling for a moment.

“I did not realize you were also assigned to this vessel.” she replied and wondered if there was anything for them to do with each other after so many years. T’Pring missed Spock and Michael and felt their absence in her life dearly, so she felt a need to reach out and try to hold onto any connection that may remain between them. At the same time, she was worried that her wish was one-sided and that there was nothing left for them here.

“I am not assigned here, it is complicated. We could discuss it over tea?” Spock told her bluntly.

“I’m on my way to start my shift.” T’Pring said, but immediately added, “Are you available later?” to make sure he didn’t see it as a dismissal. 

With that she went on her way and Spock went his, and for the first time since she got here T’Pring had something to look forward to. 

When the transfer orders came through, she wasn’t briefed about why she was being reassigned. T’Pring found out at the department briefing that morning that they were up against a hostile non-biological lifeform that was trying to get the data stored on the ship and become fully sentient to eliminate all life in the galaxy. 

It was another two days before she was told it was project Control that went rogue. 

Admiral Patar had always been unsympathetic and T’Pring had disliked her from the first time she came across her extremist writing back at the VSA. T’Pring regretted not doing more when she first understood the real goal of the project and what Patar was trying to do. Regrets are illogical however so T’Pring simply pushed the thought aside and got to work.

T'Pring sought out the captain and let him know of her involvement in the project. Since it had been classified even captain Pike was not aware that she had worked on it, however briefly. They put her on Discovery in the first place because of her programming specialty, but when Pike learned about Control, she was assigned to the main team and was sent to find Dr. Stamets.

Which is why T’Pring found herself around a very angry Michael almost every day. Michael was assigned to the bridge, but she spent a lot of her off-duty time working in the labs with them. 

The rest of the team took to T’Pring, after a few hours of cautiously testing her and waiting for her to prove herself. These few hours of quiet observation and hesitancy were also needed for T’Pring to figure these strangers out, and her place among them. It was clear that they all liked Michael, which was a positive point in T’Pring’s books, and which also meant she was starting off with a disadvantage if Michael had talked about her. 

In the end she needn't have worried, since no one had ever heard of her before, which was its own kind of pain. 

Paul Stamets was kind even if a little hot blooded, and Jett Reno was a fascinating character, but Sylvia Tilly was the one T’Pring was most grateful for. If it wasn’t for the ensign T’Pring was sure Michael would have throttled her the first time she disagreed with her. 

To say the work environment was tense would be an understatement, but that was nothing compared to when they were off duty. With the imminent threat, and everyone pushing themselves to the limit (as well as the recent loss of a crewmember, as T’Pring later learned) it was inevitable that there would be problems. But it still surprised her when Michael showed up at her quarters one day and spent a full ten minutes diminishing T’Pring as they stood in her open door. 

Her bunkmate heard the whole thing, as well as every crewmember walking past them, and everyone avoided both of them for days afterwards. 

T'Pring knew that no one really knew why they acted the way they did, and when Michael told her off it was about some inconsequential mistake (that wasn’t even a mistake at all, it was a difference in methodology) and Michael rigidly held on to her Vulcan upbringing and made the whole lashing sound logical and formal.

But T’Pring had known Michael for too long and the tension in her face and the stiffness of her body made sure she knew it was not about work at all. Since she felt Michael was justified in her anger and she deserved to feel every bit of it T’Pring didn’t argue at all, she accepted Michael’s words as her punishment and promised to do better.

It was after this incident that Spock finally sought her out. Everything was seemingly happening all at once, and since her arrival T’Pring had spent every waking hour on duty. She only left the labs to tend to her basic needs, which is why her meeting with Spock got pushed back several days after their talk in the corridor. 

It did not go as T’Pring feared it would, she expected Spock to be disappointed, and perhaps even angry on behalf of Michael. Instead he listened and talked to T’Pring with a kindness and understanding she had never expected of him. Spock had always been a good person, gentle even, but he had always had trouble with emotions because of his own inner war.

Now sitting across from T’Pring sat a man, entirely comfortable in his own skin, aware of his every fault and strength. He had changed a great deal and his confidence brought a soft feeling to T’Pring that she tried to not name, tried to hide from him, but it had never worked before and Spock knew it.

They talked at length about the last few years, their lives and accomplishments, their passions and failures. It seemed they touched on every topic available, except for one that they both tactfully avoided until the very last second.

Spock, ever brave (and annoying) finally asked her, “What are your intentions towards Michael?”.

The simple question carried with it a warning, Spock protecting his sister’s heart, and an understanding of T’Pring’s side of the story as well. She knew Spock could feel some of her warring feelings at the mention of Michael, perhaps even saw the desperation in her eyes or felt the love present under all of her layers of regret.

“I have no intentions; I am simply here to do my job.” she told him, desperately trying to convince them both. From his raised eyebrow, it was clear he was equally unconvinced by her words. Spock left soon after that and they promised to carve out another moment like this for themselves again.

All they had talked about left T’Pring with resurfaced emotions and thoughts she thought she had managed to bury deep. She watched Michael closely after that, saw her turn her loving eyes on another, saw her care for her friends, saw her sacrifice and pain. 

It had taken her considerable time and effort to come to a place where she could think of Michael without aching, and yet here T’Pring was again, wishing and hoping and allowing emotions to take her over. She did her best to stay out of Michael’s way, but she did spend a lot of time looking at Michael from afar. 

During shift T’Pring was in the lab with the science team while Michael was mostly on the bridge, but she did do a second shift down in the lab with them where T’Pring could observe her and get to know the person she became. 

T’Pring made it her mission to learn as much as she could about Michael and what happened to her in the last few years. Stamets rarely ever talked while working and whenever he did it was usually to bully them into working faster, better. Reno seemed to appear out of thin air at the most inappropriate moments, so she wasn’t around much either. 

Tilly on the other hand enjoyed chatting while she worked. At one point she had explained to T’Pring that it helped her concentrate and make quicker associations through allowing her mind to roam freely. This resulted in what humans would call ‘gossip’, which proved to be very informative, and soon T’Pring felt she had been brought up to speed on Michael’s most recent experiences. 

T’Pring had of course heard that Michael Burnham was Star Fleet’s first mutineer, but it sounded entirely false and she refused to believe it until she was faced with her picture in the news. But aside from her deeds that made front page news T’Pring didn’t know anything that Tilly hadn’t told her.

This is how she found out about Michael and Spock parting ways after Star Fleet, although even Tilly didn’t really know why. She was mostly just happy that they made up since Spock had been on Discovery the past few weeks. 

T’Pring learned about Captain Georgiou and how Michael was involved in her death, “I don’t think she ever forgave herself.” Tilly had told her sadly. Which also explained her strange relationship with the emperor. 

When Tilly spoke about Michael and Prime Georgiou she seemed to be under the impression that it was a mentor relationship, but T’Pring knew what it was like to look at someone you once loved that could no longer love you back and every time Michael looked at the emperor T’Pring saw that expression on her. In her mind there was no doubt that it was more than a professional relationship, but she had been wrong before about reading human relationships, so she didn’t put much weight on her observation. 

What did shock T’Pring was Michael’s association with Ash Tyler. Most of that story was apparently classified, but Tilly did tell her about their tumultuous relationship. Without knowing the specifics T’Pring assumed that Michael broke his heart and that’s why he so often had that pathetic forlorn look on his face when they were in the same room. Tilly however shared some redacted information that painted a much more painful picture for the both of them. 

Initially T’Pring resented Tyler and took pleasure in seeing him look at Michael with such deep sadness, but after her talks with the ensign she had all too much empathy for the both of them. She did take comfort in the knowledge that they were no longer together, but that lasted about a day before she saw them wrapped up in a tight embrace at the end of a corridor, clearly trying to find their way back to each other even as the world was ending around them.

The knowledge that Michael had truly moved on, that she was working on fixing her relationship with the lieutenant finally broke T’Pring’s hope that she is still somehow deeply embedded in Michael’s heart. That she still, after all these years, takes up so much space in her that there is no place for any others. 

Thankfully there was not much time to think after that. Michael took it upon herself to lure the Red Angel to that desolate wasteland of an abandoned outpost. They were all well aware of her self-sacrificing tendencies and T’Pring was baffled by her supposed friends that simply let her do this. Putting Michael in that chair, tying her down for her death… It seemed endlessly cruel and it took all of her years of practice in self-restraint that T’Pring didn’t simply commit mutiny or shout at the captain for allowing such a plan to pass. 

T’Pring stood next to Tilly on the bridge as all of Michael’s friends and family watched her die in front of their eyes, not daring to save her in fear that the whole galaxy would pay the price. 

As Michael drew her last breath and finally went limp in the chair T’Pring could no longer delude herself that everything would be fine. Distantly she could hear Michael’s heartbeat flatline over the intercom, she felt the padd in her hands crack and the sharp pieces cut her, she felt everyone’s eyes on her for a moment before they all succumbed to their own grief. The moment felt endless and T’Pring felt her own heart grow cold. 

But just as suddenly as it ended it all began again. Suddenly they were all pushed back into action as they detected the tachyon radiation and the rift opened up before their eyes. Within moments the first tentative beats of Michael’s heart washed over them, bringing relief and everyone went back to frantically working again. 

T’Pring wiped her blood off her fingers and went back to helping Tilly with her calculations, not paying any mind to her injuries as she focused her entire being on making sure everything worked out fine.

Soon Michael was back on board, very much alive but still unconscious. The science team was in chaos, but everyone did their job perfectly as the information came in from Michael’s mother on the planet. There was nothing to do but work, no time to consider Michael lying prone on a biobed two floors and three corridors away, no time to think about the implications that it was her mother down in the trap not Michael. 

Spock later told T’Pring about it of course, about how broken up Michael seemed, how seeing her mother gave her hope and snatched it away just as quickly, how hurt she had been when her mom didn’t want to talk to her at all, how she did go and talk to her anyways because of course she would. 

That day would stay with all of them, T’Pring was sure, but they didn’t even get time to catch their breath before they were already in the next crisis as Leland was taken over by Control and attacking them. 

They went to Boreth following the signals, T’Pring wasn’t sure what happened but Ash seemed even more crushed, he seemed like a ghost. Even as doctor Culber picked a fight with him he just took it all. T’Pring never thought she would feel anything but resentment for the man, but she could so clearly see herself in his actions that she left before they stopped fighting, no longer able to stomach the similarities. 

Dr. Culber, Hugh, had been the one to fix her hand the other day and she saw his inner struggle in his every move, both during the fight and in the medbay as he worked. He was clearly going through so much, Tilly had told her about his death and resurrection, and yet he was calm and kind with every patient. 

Boreth was a mystery to everyone who didn’t have the clearance, it seemed strange for Chancellor L’Rell to invite them to such a sacred place, to be on board the ship, to allow Captain Pike to beam down. Maybe that last one was not a kindness, because when the captain came back, he was a changed man.

Michael and Spock went on a separate mission (which time T’Pring spent trying to convince herself that she did not feel worried for them), while Tilly and T’Pring worked on the Sphere data. Then they realized that Control was using nanobots to take human hosts (like Leland) which added one more task to T’Pring’s seemingly endless list of things to focus on.

They were just on the bridge, discussing this new information, trying to figure out where Control tried to take Michael and Spock when suddenly a number of section 31 ships showed up on the long-range scanners. Instantly they all started thinking about what to do, where to run, until Michael spoke:

“We are outgunned. We can’t delete the data. That leaves us only one option… Destroy the ship.” 

They all knew she was right, everyone understood that there is no other way, but for a moment everyone searched out the eyes of someone else, to make sure that this was still reality and not a nightmare. T’Pring looked at Michael, she needed her to turn to her and she did. It was as much of a surprise as it was expected. They shared a look, a complicated one that T’Pring would probably never fully understand, but one that gave her the resolve she needed. A look that gave her hope in more ways than one. 

The next few hours were a blur, everyone doing their absolute best to get Discovery ready for its destruction, while also taking moments for themselves to pack their belongings, their whole lives into compact packages. Sorting through years of accumulated memories and years of their lives to decide in a few stolen seconds what mattered. 

T’Pring had not had the time to settle in, so it was easy for her to put everything back in her bag and go through the whole process without thinking. 

All too soon they rendezvoused with the Enterprise, evacuated the ship and said a hasty goodbye to Discovery, only to realize that the Sphere would never let the ship be destroyed. 

Michael seemed to be so far away in that moment, standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, seeing something no one else could see and then she was suddenly back, telling Pike to stop trying to blow up Discovery. Michael shared a look with Pike and with sudden clarity T’Pring knew she touched the time-crystal… the idiot.

T’Pring didn’t get the chance to be angry with her, or to tell her she was irresponsible, because within minutes they were all around a conference table trying to figure out how they could use the time-crystal to take the ship to the future. 

“I’ll do it, my mother started this. I’m gonna finish it.” Michael seemed certain and resigned to her fate. As usual all too ready to give her whole existence for anything, risk her life for a fighting chance.

But it did give them hope. Sure, it would be hard work and it would have to be executed perfectly, on the first try, without a single mistake, or all would be lost, but T’Pring already knew they would succeed. 

Hope was slowly cutting through the tension in the room, until Admiral Cornwell asked, “How will you find your way back?”

They all understood then that this was a one-way trip. Even if Pike said there is a design to this, even if they all tried to cling to the idea that Michael would be back, they knew there was no such hope. If they succeeded, they would never see her again. 

Instead of the plan, or the job ahead, T’Pring could only think about her profound loss. She had not even lost Michael yet, but the ache was already there, threatening and huge. She paid no mind to the remainder of the meeting, she didn’t pay attention to Spock explaining that Michael set the signals, or when they started discussing how to put together the Red Angel suit. 

As she couldn’t take her eyes off Michael T’Pring could feel over her bond with Spock his anxiety about Michael’s fate, and his pity for T’Pring. She once again shut the bond off, leaving her alone with her emotions. 

Then suddenly another signal appeared and again everything was in motion leaving no place for anything but the plan.

Xahea was a fascinating planet itself, but the most peculiar thing perhaps was Queen Po. She threw herself into work, at their problem, with such zeal and excitement as if it was not the end of the world they were trying to prevent. Her behavior confounded T’Pring and if she was not clearly more intelligent than most people in that room, she might have found her excitement inappropriate and borderline insulting. 

Po confirmed what they already all knew in their hearts, Michael would never come back. Even though T’Pring already heard it, when Michael and Spock told the rest of the crew it became real. She watched silently as they all tried to think their way out of it, as they all went through more and more elaborate mental processes to find any hope. 

Some of them became angry, Ash even tried to talk them all out of it, clearly ready to sacrifice the galaxy for Michael, and T’Pring would be lying if she denied that she would do the same. There was no argument though. 

“Eyes up for commander Burnham.” Pike ordered and they all stood, looking at Michael, their only hope, and source of their sorrow. 

“I wish there was more time. But there isn’t. I love you. All of you.” Michael said then, looking at each of them in turn, giving them strength and solidifying their resolve. 

Michael met T’Pring’s eyes as well, and maybe it was the trick of the lights or T’Pring’s own compromised emotions, but she thought she saw her mask break for a moment and all she could see was a young and scared Michael with her heart broken in pieces ready to beg. But Michael gathered herself as she had done so many times before and the moment was broken. 

They all got to work. T’Pring saw Michael disappear into a room with Sarek and Amanda and she was grateful she got the chance to say goodbye to her parents. 

T’Pring was immersed in updating the interface of the suit and making some modifications to the programming so everything would go smoothly when the time came. She was just about to put some finishing touches on a piece of code when Tilly approached her.

“Some of us decided to stay on the ship.” she started, almost innocently. “We don’t want Michael to be alone and there are more important things than the ones holding us here.”

Tilly didn’t say anything else, just a corridor junction and a time before she left her to her work. 

Staying on the ship? How had this not occurred to T’Pring before? It would solve everything, she would be free of her parents, she would be in the same time as Michael! There was no question in T’Pring that was the right decision.

She hanged towards the back of the group of people she found in the corridor. She saw most of Michael’s friends, her family, Spock, all standing there trying to convince her that she didn’t have to do this alone. 

“I am sure what you were about to say will be beautiful, but it is done, Michael, and we are running out of time.” Saru gently stepped in as she tried to convince them to stay. Tilly interrupted as well and the whole group was suddenly leaving a confused and bewildered Michael behind, with T’Pring who didn’t know what to do. 

“You are coming too?” Michael asked as they were left alone. She seemed hesitant, but curious. 

“Yes.” 

“No.” Michael protested immediately. “You have a life here, and it’s dangerous. You can’t!”

T’Pring thought it wasn’t about her personally, that Michael was still trying to convince them all that she had to do this alone, so she said, “You can accept help, Michael. Let us take care of you as well.”

“No, you don’t understand! I can’t send you into danger! I can’t stand the thought of-- You have to stay.” Michael told her, both angry and desperate. 

“I have made my decision, Michael. I need you to respect it.” T’Pring told her quietly, aware that this conversation felt familiar for all too painful reasons. 

“I will not let you sacrifice everything for nothing.” Michael no longer seemed desperate, in fact she seemed to have shut down all together and wielded her anger as a shield.

“You do not have a say in this.” T’Pring told her, trying to shrink into herself from the shame and guilt she could feel rising in her. She left Michael then, no longer able to meet her eyes or take any of her anger. 

It was clear Michael wanted nothing to do with her and didn’t even want to be at the same time as her. She made it quite obvious that even in the future, away from everything, she would still never forgive T’Pring or want her again. 

It didn’t matter anymore. Even if Michael would never love her again T’Pring could not live the life she had been forced into, there was no choice to be made here. 

With only minutes left until Control’s arrival everyone on the bridge was tense as Michael finally showed up. T’Pring tried to stay away from her and concentrate on captain Pike as he said his farewell. 

“Most people never get the chance to learn what’s in their own hearts. If we figure it out it’s often not what we expected, or even what we would have chosen for ourselves. I am very grateful, commander, to have been here to watch you discover your heart.” Captain Pike told Michael. She seemed to understand his words in a way T’Pring could not as she seemed touched and on the brink of tears. “Thank you.”

“I know that you…” the captain continued, “I know that all of you will face your destinies with bravery and honor, even those moments to come that will test the strongest among us.” His words reverberated through them as he gave the captaincy to Saru, and the bridge crew stood in a moment of silence to salute him. 

Minutes later they all stood in tense silence as they watched Control’s ships appear out of warp, effectively surrounding them. It was time.

Back in the lab everyone was working as fast as physically possible, T’Pring was uploading the programming to the suit and connecting each new part they finished to the sensors and the code. All around her people were running and shouting but none of it mattered. She just had to do her job, make sure the suit would keep Michael safe no matter what. 

From the sounds and the lights of explosions outside the viewing ports they all knew the battle was already raging. When T’Pring fitted the last piece in place that needed her to be integrated she stepped back with a sigh. It was both a relief that her work was done and anxiety that Michael’s fate was out of her hands. She watched as Reno and Stamets put the suit on a gurney and Spock, Michael, Tilly, Nilsson, and Nahn led them out of the lab down the corridor. 

T’Pring had nothing left to do. She knew she needed rest, she could feel her body finally showing her all her aches, finally allowing exhaustion to settle in after such a long time of fighting it and pushing it aside. But this was not the time to rest yet, there was a battle outside the windows, there were people struggling to keep the ship afloat. 

“Leland has beamed aboard; all personnel be advised.” came over the intercom and T’Pring knew what she needed to do. She found her console again and started building firewalls around the sphere data to give them a fighting chance against Control. 

She could feel over her bond with Spock that something was wrong, things weren’t going as smoothly as they should, but she couldn’t focus on anything else but her work if she wanted to give them an advantage. 

“Is there anyone in engineering?” came the voice of Emperor Georgiou from the intercom. 

“T’Pring here, I am in engineering.” she stated. 

“I have a transmitter; I need to transfer the Sphere data into a subsystem memory.” 

“Understood, T’Pring out.”

The only subsystem with enough capacity that was currently out of use was the Spore drive, so T’Pring began the transfer there. She was barely finished with the job and just putting some last security measures in place when Georgiou tumbled down the stairs, followed by Leland who kept kicking her as she rolled further into the room. 

T’Pring didn’t know what to do, she had not been trained in combat and although she had superior strength compared to humans, she knew she stood no chance against the nanobot fortified Control. 

She was just about to lunge at him anyways, to try to get in a good hit but Georgiou shouted at her to hide as she held her own against him. 

Finally, the emperor managed to get him into the spore cube and lock the door before she started quickly typing away at a console. 

“A little help over here?” Georgiou asked as she kept up her typing. It took T’Pring a second to realize what she was trying to do and got to work beside Georgiou on executing her plan. Leland kept angrily smashing the glass of the cube in an effort to get out, getting increasingly more violent. Within moments the cube became magnetized and they watched as Leland started to deteriorate before their eyes. 

“This does not end here.” he told them angrily.

“Actually, it does. And it’s going to hurt. And I’d like to hear you scream now.” T’Pring watched as Georgiou told Leland with joy in her voice and giggled as he started screaming in anger. 

The emperor then stepped back and reported to the bridge that Control had been neutralized as if she was talking about squashing a bug. For the first time T’Pring finally understood just what it meant that Georgiou was Terran. 

T’Pring didn’t have time to think about this because in a moment she felt over her bond with Spock such despair come through even her tight shields could not stop the emotions. There was no privacy in the middle of a battle, so T’Pring found a quiet corner and sat down on the ground, allowing her shield to drop. 

“Peace and long life.” came the simple thought, followed by endless emotions of loss and regret. Spock was staying behind. 

‘Good bye.’ she whispered to herself before the time rift finally took them all and T’Pring’s entire being seemed to expand and shrink at the same time. It felt like an eternity and less than a perceptible increment of time as they went through the portal.


	3. Chapter 3

T’Pring came to on the floor, alarm claxons blaring all around her, the flashing reds of the alert assaulting her vision as she tried to get her bearings. The ship shook and things kept sliding across the floor as they were clearly navigating through a rough patch of space. If T’Pring’s own disorientation was any indication she didn’t have much hope that the navigator was doing any better, which could explain the endless bumps of the ship.

T’Pring was just about to get up and try to find her way to the bridge when commander Saru’s voice announced, “All decks prepare for impact.” so instead she found herself a station she could hold onto and stayed put. Within moments the whole ship shook and T’Pring could hear the bulkheads twist and scream as they clearly crash landed somewhere. 

When she was sure that the ship would not move again T’Pring started to finally catch up to herself, took a deep breath and tried to stand. Her head felt foggy. There was something wrong, somewhere, but she didn’t immediately know what. 

Her whole body was aching, strained muscles, tense joints. T’Pring had been awake and had gone without meditation for more than three days and the overdrive they had been operating at for the last weeks was finally taking its toll on her. Briefly she wondered how her human crewmates had gotten through this at all, since their bodies were even weaker than her own. 

After taking stock of her body T’Pring finally got the chance to think, her first thought was of Michael. She didn’t know if she had arrived safely, if she was even alive. Her first instinct was to rush to the bridge and make sure she was safe, but it was immediately overridden by the sharp pain that struck her seemingly out of nowhere. 

She felt her knees go weak and she let out a pained gasp. Her mind felt empty. Barren. Her every bond and connection snapped, the pieces aching and thrumming in their need to connect. T’Pring was familiar with the feeling of shut off bonds, the quiet that came with it, but this was so much worse. It wasn’t simply quiet, it felt empty. No family. No Spock. No innate feeling of oneness with her people.

T’Pring felt she could barely breathe. She had known that coming to the future would sever her bonds, she was prepared for the pain and yet now it seemed insurmountable. 

Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder, a presence burning into her, that snapped her out of the shock. She allowed the touch for a moment, the brush of another’s mind to sooth that pain in her own. 

Slowly as she could finally rebuild her mind to a minimal degree T’Pring could identify the presence as Georgiou. The fact that she was there, with a gentle hand on her still, quietly talking to her and asking her what to do was too much of a surprise to deal with. 

“I just need a moment.” she managed to force out, and allowed Georgiou to keep her soothing hand firmly on her shoulder. The quiet engineering slowly started to fill with people as they regained their consciousness and tried to find their consoles or something to do. She could feel their lound emotions harshly batter her aching mind, so she focused on Georiou instead. 

Her mind was quiet, almost eerily so, but it felt steadying and sure. Her hand was warm and strong, as she with an unexpected patience waited for T’Pring to gather herself.

Maybe if she had any of her faculties about her she would be ashamed, embarrassed even. It was quite intimate and so very public, but instead T’Pring let the quiet, ordered, crude whispers of the emperor’s mind keep her together. 

Endless moments later she felt a hypo on her neck, now a worried looking doctor Pollard watching her as well. The hypo helped slow her racing heart and she started to make her way back to herself. It took less and less effort to keep at bay the pain of her missing connections and the loud thrum of everyone around her.

Slowly T’Pring started rebuilding her shields, she could feel new whispers of distant Vulcans sooth her mental landscape, a new connection to her species being constructed. T’Pring had no idea how long she stayed there, waiting for her mind to heal itself, the steadying hand never once leaving her. 

An indeterminable time later T’Pring could finally think again, she straightened and stepped away from Georgiou, the woman’s hand falling away without a word. The emperor quietly retreated and left her with a last look she could almost mistake for concern. 

Thankfully now T’Pring could finally shut out the mental bleedthrough from the humans, and decided it was good enough for now and went looking for something to do. 

They had no internal communication, as someone in the corridor told her, so she joined an ensign in making repairs to the EPS grid. As they worked silently, fixing conduit after conduit they started hearing more and more sounds coming from the bulkhead. The ensign kept giving T’Pring anxious glances as the sounds of the hull being crushed grew louder and more frequent. 

After they finished the last juncture in their section, they went looking for some other work, but the lights finally flickered on from minimum. The voice of acting captain Saru came over the intercom, instructing them all to take their stations. T’Pring parted ways from the ensign and went to the bridge to observe. Since she was not technically a member of StarFleet and held the position of specialist aboard the ship she didn’t have an assigned station. 

Most systems were finally coming back online and T’Pring took the secondary science station to start some diagnostics and look for something she could do. 

Apparently, the ship was being devoured by parasitic ice. They tried and tried in vain to get out of its grasp, everyone growing more desperate as they kept failing. T’Pring could faintly feel some of their emotions, which in a strange way soothed her mind. The ship kept shaking and the hull made increasingly more pained noises. 

“Enemy vessel. Right on top of us.” reported Rhys, adding even more stress to their already bad situation. Instead of opening fire or simply boarding them while their shields were down a tractor beam grabbed hold of Discovery and lifted them from the ice. At the unexpected help everyone sighed in relief but waited in anticipation for the hail to connect. 

When Michael’s smiling face came on the viewscreen T’Pring almost sobbed from relief. She was alive. She was well. Nothing else mattered in the whole universe but Michael and her beautiful smile, her eyes filled with joy as she saw her family again. 

“I’ve found you! I’ve been looking for so long!” Michael’s voice broke on the last word, emotions clearly overwhelming her as well as the rest of the crew who were all smiling and crying and laughing all at once. 

“I landed here a year ago.” she added, finally drawing everyone’s attention to how different she looked and seemed. “I’ve been waiting for all of you, all this time.”

It broke T’Pring’s heart that Michael was here alone for a whole year. She had landed in this new world with no one to hold onto, with no one to support her. She must have felt so lonely. 

The whole bridge crew went to the transporter room to welcome Michael home. T’Pring stood in the back and watched as they hugged her and greeted her, the joy and relief coming off them in waves as they all took her in and basked in her presence. 

T’Pring felt selfish being there. She felt like that moment wasn’t for her, that she was trespassing on something precious, until Michael sought out her eyes and gave her a warm smile T’Pring never thought she would see directed at her again. 

In her surprise she felt her own lips twitch up at the corners and her eyes burn with tears. She blamed it on her being emotionally compromised but knew she would have let it happen anyway. 

T’Pring couldn’t take all the emotions in the room that were bleeding into her still tender mind and left to try and meditate to restore some of her shields. 

She was taken out of her meditation by the beep of the intercom, Acting Captain Saru invited her to join them on the bridge for a debrief. 

When T’Pring entered Michael was already there, standing in the middle with everyone looking at her. T’Pring’s mind was still injured and she could feel everyone’s curiosity and love for Michael, these emotions matched her own well. 

Finally, with everyone gathered Michael started telling them about all she could find out in her year here. She told them about the Burn, about the Federation falling to pieces. T’Pring saw as much as felt her crewmates’ disbelief, their mourning for everything they believed in. 

All beings hope to find a better future than the present they left, everyone wants to see a future that is better and kinder for their children. So, facing a future that seems so tragic, so far removed from their present, their core ideals in pieces scattered across the galaxy with no hope… T’Pring could understand all the sadness and disappointment that everyone was feeling. She felt it too. 

Saru was officially named captain of Discovery, a field promotion without any of the pomp he deserved, but everyone was happy for him. 

Michael gave a warm smile to T’Pring as she left the bridge, and in T’Pring that unprompted beautiful smile made something blossom. Something she had tried to bury, a feeling she had known once, and here it was again, familiar yet new. 

Silently she followed Michael in the turbo lift, intending to simply go back to her quarters and meditate, maybe attempt a healing trance. She didn’t expect Michael to interact with her at all, but she never ceased to surprise her.

Michael turned to her fully, with her whole body and quietly told the computer to stop the elevator. 

“Are you okay?” she asked just as softly, her worry washing up on the shores of T’Pring’s mind. 

“I…“ T’Pring briefly considered lying, but she would never insult Michael with that. “I require many hours of meditation.” she told her truthfully, then added without thinking, “I am happy to see you.”

Later T’Pring will blame her failed shields and her compromised emotions, but it will have been worth it for the blinding smile that spread over Michael’s face and warmth and happiness she could feel radiate from her. “I’m happy to see you, too.” she told her laughing. “You better go and meditate before you say too much!”

T’Pring could feel an entirely illogical blush spread on her face, her skin heating under Michael’s all-seeing gaze. She couldn’t stand the moment any longer and asked the lift to continue. They parted ways when T’Pring reached her quarters, Michael having walked her all the way to her door. 

They didn’t talk but Michael’s warm, solid presence was enough for that moment. There was tension between them that she hadn’t felt in years, so T’Pring ducked inside her room with a quick goodbye before she could get her hopes up too much. 

After a lengthy meditation session T’Pring finally felt her mind quiet down again, her shields once more intact and ready for the onslaught of human emotions she had to batter each day. 

The mess hall was still mostly in ruins, but the replicators were working and there were crates organized to resemble tables where people could eat. 

T’Pring was just getting started on her order of plomeek soup (that Michael had programmed perfectly into the replicator) when a tall man sat down next to her. He didn’t have a plate and was wearing dark leathers and strange fabrics T’Pring had never seen. Tilly had already updated her on the newest gossip regarding Michael so she surmised it was “Mister Booker?”, she greeted him.

“Michael said you were observant.” he started. “How’s the soup?” he asked, amused.

“It is adequate.” she told him and went back to her plomeek. 

“I heard the landing was rough. You should have seen Michael when she arrived, she still had puke on her shoes when i met her!” he laughed. 

“I did not!” came Michael’s amused protest. She came up behind Booker and put her hands on his shoulders to lean in close to his face and stage-whispered, “Stop telling everyone that, I have stories about you too, you know?!”.

They shared a laugh as Michael released him and sat down as well. Clearly, they were very familiar with each other and T’Pring felt a little pang in her chest, it was jealousy, but she didn’t want to acknowledge that fact. 

“Have you ever seen a cat, T’Pring?” Michael asked, the familiarity of her tone unexpected. It suddenly pierced her just how much she had missed Michael.

“There were exhibits at the Natural Museum of Vulcan and Federation Worlds that included cats.”

“So, you’ve never seen a live one?” Booker asked, incredulous.

“You have to see Book’s cat, she’s huge!” Michael added, which statement started a kind of physical altercation where they punched each other in the arm multiple times while inexplicably laughing. 

“You have a live feline aboard your vessel? For what purpose?” T’Pring asked him, trying to distract the two from their clear flirting. She did not mind Michael having romantic connections, but T’Pring preferred it didn’t happen right in front of her. 

“For what purpose?? You are just like Michael; I swear she asked that exact question when they first met!” Booker told her. “Meet me in the hangar bay after you finish your soup and I’ll introduce you; you’ll see why!” he said and left mumbling about Vulcans raising weird kids. 

“He speaks of the animal as if it was sentient, is that the case?” T’Pring asked Michael curiously as she finished her soup. 

Her question made Michael laugh, bright and pure and T’Pring sat there stunned at how much she had missed it. 

“Humans like to assign anthropomorphic traits to animals; it makes them feel less alone.” Michael said at last, “And Book is a kind of empath, his people can communicate with all living beings. I think he can actually talk to the cat even if she isn’t technically sentient.”

T’Pring put her tray in the cleaning unit and asked, “Will you come as well, to see the feline entity?”

“The feline entity?” Michael asked laughing.

“I do not know its name.” T’Pring stated, then, with a conspiratory look she only allowed because they were alone, she added, “And simply saying ‘the cat’ doesn’t sound very Vulcan.” ...and it wouldn’t make you laugh, she thought to herself.

She expected Michael’s smile this time, but the adoration she saw in her eyes still took her off guard. 

The cat really was huge. Booker kept insisting that “She is a Queen!” which Michael kept jokingly imitating. They shared a familiarity that T’Pring envied, they clearly spent a lot of time together and Booker knew this new Michael better than anyone. It had been too long since it was T’Pring who knew her best.

Michael seemed lighter, freer. She seemed unburdened and T’Pring knew that at some point she must have given up on her past, on her family aboard the Discovery. She was also more emotive; she gave away her affections every opportunity she got. 

This new Michael intimidated T’Pring, and she also feared her. It was hard to believe that after Michael found herself so thoroughly, she would settle for anything T’Pring could give her. 

T’Pring could no longer look at them. She made herself an excuse and left them with the fat cat.

It would be better for everyone, T’Pring reasoned, if she simply kept her distance, didn’t give herself a chance for false hopes. It was clear that Booker liked Michael more than she realized and T’Pring was sure they would be good for each other. She couldn’t be selfish anymore.

It was going well, the avoiding-Michael plan. She seemed happy with Booker and the cat, whenever T’Pring saw her she was smiling or laughing with him. Sometimes Michael saw her watch them and her smile faded, she looked sad. T’Pring was convinced that Michael knew how she felt, and she looked at her with pity because of it. 

Life went on. Discovery went to earth and to T’Pring’s shock they left Booker behind. She didn’t dwell on it long because soon they were on a new mission to the Trill homeworld, then finally they were on their way to the Federation headquarters. 

Everyone was losing their hope each day just a little more, the initial excitement and rush of time travel was wearing off and slowly they all started to realize the magnitude of their choice. When they found Federation HQ and instead of the warm welcome they expected came endless interrogations, inspections, and investigations they were all frustrated. 

Luckily saving the USS Tihkov and the Kilians was a win, and the promise from Admiral Vance that the crew can remain together had everyone trying to hold on just a little harder to hope. 

Of course, when Booker’s ship showed up with only the fat cat aboard, Michael couldn’t do the hard thing and wait. Instead she took off with the emperor to save him. Risking everything for Booker, her career, her life. It was a mess and she even got demoted in the process, so T’Pring was frustrated. 

When will Michael learn that the only way isn’t always through her, that she doesn’t need to keep throwing her life away for everything. 

She was just on the way to her quarters after a long day of worrying and thinking about how she’s going to strangle Michael when she got back when someone fell in stride with her. It was already annoying to her that someone decided to interrupt her, but the fact that it was Booker just made it worse. 

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” came Booker’s deep voice after it became obvious, she was going to ignore him. 

“How may I be of assistance?” T’Pring asked him, trying to make it clear with her voice that she did not in fact want to talk to him.

“Can’t a friend just drop by and ask how you’ve been?” he asked, following it with a forced laugh. T’Pring simply looked at him and raised a single brow as Spock had taught her.

“Okay, okay!” he said, his hands raised in an apologetic gesture. “I want to talk to you about Michael.” He admitted.

T’Pring did not want to talk about Michael. Especially not with Booker. If he even tried to ask her for tips in dating Michael T’Pring was sure she would do him bodily harm. 

“I do not see how we have anything to discuss regarding Michael.” She told him and tried to escape the conversation by turning down the next corridor sharply.

“Hey, wait up!” Booker told her, catching up quickly. “Come on, just… hear me out! Please?”

T’Pring suddenly stopped in the middle of the corridor, crossed her arms and waited for Booker to come out with whatever he so clearly wanted to say.

“In private, T’Pring…” he said, still with a patient and kind voice. T’Pring didn’t understand him, she was being purposefully rude to make him leave her alone, but he just wouldn’t take a hint.

Dropping her shoulders, she let out a sigh and did her best to not roll her eyes as she led him to her quarters. “Come in.” she told him and set about making tea for both of them. The least she could do was offer him a drink after he had been so persistent, right?

She put the tea in front of him where he sat at her little table and joined him with her own cup in hand. She raised her eyebrow again, prompting him to start talking.

Booker took the small cup that looked even tinier in his hand and took a tentative sip before screwing up his face in displeasure. “This is the same crap Michael likes, how can you drink this?” he asked before pushing the cup away. 

“Why are you avoiding her?” he cut to the chase immediately.

For a moment T’Pring was taken aback by the bluntness then put her own tea down with shaking hands and answered evenly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Booker seemed to change tracks then, “You know she’s miserable, right? She was so excited to see you again, but for some reason you won’t even look at her… What did you do?”

“Are you accusing me of something, Mister Booker?” T’Pring asked, shocked and nearing angry quickly.

“I see you looking at her when you think no one is watching, I see your regret. So, what did you do, and can you fix it?” he asked earnestly.

“I did not do anything like what you are implying. It is simply in Michael’s best interest that I keep a distance from her. I thought you would appreciate that courtesy.” She said, probably way too quickly and hurried if Booker’s smirk was anything to go by.

“I knew it. You are just as dumb and self-sacrificing as Michael is.” He told her, somehow seeming fondly exasperated. “Why do people feel like they can decide by themselves whether someone gets to love them or not?” he asked and when he saw T’Pring move to answer he raised his hands and said, “Don’t answer that.”

For a moment they just sat there, T’Pring’s mind getting stuck on the word love over and over again. What did Booker know about their relationship, about love, about anything!? And why did he feel the need to talk to her about any of this? Wasn’t it enough that T’Pring got out of the way so Michael and him can figure it out for themselves? What was the point of this whole conversation?

“You should talk to her.” Booker said, interrupting her thoughts and quietly leaving her to stew.

T’Pring didn’t think Booker was a cruel person, but what other purpose would a talk like this serve than to drive the knife deeper and twist it? There were a few unusually quiet days following their return from the Emerald Chain that T’Pring spent near obsessively thinking about that strange conversation. 

She watched Michael in the mess hall, sulking about her demotion. She saw her in the corridors talking quietly with Booker. She saw her and Tilly in the lab in conversation that had both of them nearly crying and each time T’Pring saw her she desperately wished Michael would turn towards her, meet her eyes, smile at her. She kept hoping that like in an old earth romance Michael would feel her presence, be instinctively drawn to her, their eyes would meet and they would fall in love again. But real life is different. 

She tried to meditate her disappointment away, she tried to distract herself. At first, she spent all her time in the lab trying to help with figuring out what caused the burn but it just made her even more sad. 

One evening after meditation she decided to look up her family. Her brothers all had descendants so T’Pring knew she at least had some family out there. Somewhere. It didn’t feel like it. So, she looked up the closest thing she ever had to it, Spock.

He had a long and beautiful life, he changed the world for the better just as T’Pring knew he would. Apparently overachieving wasn’t enough because he started the reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan people, dedicating his life to peace and unity. He married a man named Kirk who also seemed to be a highly decorated Starfleet officer and they had a long and happy marriage according to all the pictures she found of them in the database. 

T’Pring was happy for Spock, and since she was feeling somewhat sentimental she decided to take one of the pictures about him when he was older and seemed happy, and replicated a nice frame to put it in. She displayed it next to her bed and whenever she saw it it made her remember home. 

T’Pring never thought she would see Vulcan again so when they were sent to Ni’Var she had no idea if she felt happy or sad or scared. It was disheartening to know that Ni’Var had left the Federation, but she was glad that Spock’s life work had come to such a wonderful fruition. 

T’Pring heard from Tilly that Michael invoked the T’kal-in-ket and she was immediately hit with such fond exasperation for her, because of course she would. Michael is the only person who has the chutzpah to challenge a bunch of Vulcans to a logical debate. 

She hesitated about going to the T’kal-in-ket but in the end the decision was thankfully taken from her when she got assigned a shift last minute. In the end T’Pring was grateful, she didn’t know how she would feel about seeing Vulcans, or how they would react to her. And of course, she had Tilly to keep her updated.

T’Pring was happy that Michael got to see her mother again and this time on much happier terms if Tilly’s gossip is to be believed. 

Michael seemed happier after that day, even if they left her mother behind. She seemed less hesitant, less like she was seeing ghosts when she saw her friends. It seemed she finally decided that she was home, she was in the right place. 

T’Pring was happy for her, it was much easier to keep her distance from a happy Michael than a sad one. It had been hard for her to stay away when it was so obvious that she was struggling, now it didn’t feel like a betrayal.

She expected that after Booker stayed aboard the Discovery Michael would spend her every moment with him, so it was a surprise when she showed up at her quarters one day.

T’Pring was just finishing up with her meditation for the day and she allowed her visitor entrance without asking who it was. She slowly unfolded herself from the ground and ordered the holographic firepot turned off as the door slid open. 

Michael stood there, waiting, almost hesitant. “Hi!” she said simply and waited for T’Pring to say something.

“Come in” T’Pring told her and gestured inside. Michael stepped in after a moment and almost seemed to flinch when the door slid shut behind her. 

T’Pring was confused, she had not known Michael to be so fearful? Shy? It was hard to tell, this new Michael was different than the one she followed through the wormhole, she hadn’t had the time to learn all her new tells yet.

Without asking or really thinking about it T’Pring made them tea and placed it on the small table in the dining corner. Finally, Michael took the offer, sat down with her and took the cup in her hands.

“I had this whole speech prepared, but now I don’t know what to say.” Michael offered before taking a sip of her tea.

“You wanted to tell me something?” T’Pring asked and immediately stiffened up already expecting the worst.

“Yeah.” Michael said and looked away. “I had a whole year to think. But I think I gave up hope in the end and then everything seemed to happen all at once so now I just feel…” she never finished the sentence but T’Pring knew what she meant. 

When it became clear that Michael wouldn’t continue T’Pring spoke, “I never thought we would be here.” At Michael’s confused look she clarified, “The two of us, having tea, talking-“ she didn’t dare to say more. 

“I missed you.” Michael told her, leaning closer and pinning T’Pring to the spot with such an earnest expression. Like she was trying to force T’Pring to believe her. Like she expected she wouldn’t.

T’Pring couldn’t hold her gaze, she looked at her hands and the small cup in them. How tiny, how breakable it was. Was it her heart or Michael’s she was holding now, trying to protect so dearly?

“I was so angry.” Michael continued, relaxing back in her seat a bit, “I kept running over that last conversation we had. About the things you said, about what I wish I told you.” T’Pring glanced at her then, seeing such an open and vulnerable look on Michael that she had to look away again. She couldn’t bear it, she didn’t deserve it. 

“But I think I understand now. You were not trying to hurt me, and it’s awful that the exact words you needed were the ones that- well. But you were right. And I think you were right all those years ago too.”

“What are you saying Michael?” T’Pring finally asked, meeting her eyes again, steeling herself for a goodbye or heartbreak. 

“I had a whole year to figure out what I want, to learn what’s in my heart as Pike had said. And it’s you. It has always been you.” Michael told her, her words going from hard and desperate to tender and vulnerable by the time she finished. She let go of her cup and reached her hand across the table. “I missed you” she said again, but it had a new meaning. It was regret and heartache and hope and love and a question.

T’Pring sat there frozen for a moment, her hands clutching the teacup so hard she was afraid it would break. ‘I missed you’ her mind repeated. 

For long moments there were warring emotions in T’Pring. She still felt shame and guilt for breaking Michael’s heart all those years ago and the things she said just before they left the past. She felt sad and angry for all they have been through. She had so much love for Michael that she didn’t know what to do with the new found hope. She was afraid to accept what Michael was saying because she knew that she wouldn’t survive another heartbreak. 

Finally T’Pring looked up to meet Michael’s eyes, and suddenly it didn’t matter anymore, she would risk any heartache or pain for Michael. 

Slowly she peeled her stiff fingers from the cup and reached for Michael’s hand. She stopped at the last moment, hesitant and afraid. Maybe she was misreading it, maybe Michael wanted a friend, maybe T’Pring didn’t deserve even that. Just before she could pull her hand back Michael reached out those last few millimeters.

It felt almost the same as their very first kiss. Michael’s fingers hesitantly running over her own, carefully exploring the connection and the feeling of it, the electricity grew and charged them both. Long moments later Michael pulled away, leaving T’Pring shaking, her fingers still pulsing with the phantom feeling of the kiss. 

Their eyes met again, and there was a moment of hesitation, a moment of panic in both of them that they were repeating the past, that this was a mistake. But the moment passed. Michael sighed in relief and smiled at T’Pring, happiness shining in her eyes and growing exponentially stronger when she saw T’Pring smile right back at her.

“I missed you too.” T’Pring said at last, meaning ‘I love you’ just as much as Michael did.

With the hesitancy out of the way they settled on T’Pring’s bed like they used to when they were younger, and talked for hours. It would take them a long time to catch up to each other, to mend all the ways they had broken each other’s heart and to heal from all they have endured. But they were patient. They had each other, they would reach for each other every day and hold the other close. 

For a while still it was shy and awkward, to T’Pring it almost felt like they were teenagers again. There were secret glances and whispered words and hesitant touches. They didn’t want to tell anyone yet, because it was so new and so tender still, but T’Pring couldn’t keep her loving eyes behind her Vulcan control and Michael couldn’t stop her stolen kisses. 

It was weeks later they were walking to their third date trying and failing to keep a respectable distance between them as they walked. Book came bounding down after them in the corridor and slung his arms around them, one for each, and asked, “Are we going on another date, girls? What’s the plan?”

Neither got the chance to deny it because their panicked looks and flushed cheeks told the truth for them. The secret was finally out.

T’Pring shrugged off Book and pushed herself between Michael and him, decidedly done hiding anything. She put a soft hand on Michael’s lower back and waited for her reaction. It was still so new and T’Pring felt out of her element in a way she never usually allowed to feel, and didn’t know what to expect. 

With a bright and amused smile Michael pulled her closer and planted a small kiss on her cheek in response. 

“I’m taking my girl to the greenhouse and treating her to a nice dinner.” Michael told Book, never taking her eyes off of T’Pring. 

T’Pring was so lost in her eyes and the loving smile directed at her she barely heard the rest of their conversation. She watched as Michael talked to Book a bit more, her eyes happy and full of joy. It felt entirely too intimate to be looking at her like this, from so close as Michael was looking at something else, but T’Pring cherished the moment, happy that she could have it at all. 

A minute later Michael was saying goodbye to Book and guiding her through the door to the greenhouse, breaking her out of that beautiful moment to lead her to a new one. The humidity and heat enveloped T’Pring, adding to the already present feeling of pleasure and warmth just from simply being in the presence of Michael.

They walked the path between the strange and stranger plants, holding hands and quietly talking among them. There usually wasn’t anyone in the greenhouse at this hour so T’Pring didn’t protest when Michael started caressing her hand in a filthy Vulcan kiss even as they walked. After a while the feeling made her weak in the knee so T’Pring decided that it was only logical to pull Michael with her between some larger plants where they were a little more hidden away.

T’Pring pulled Michael close and lay a soft kiss on her lips. Their eyes met for a moment after and the sparkle in Michael’s eyes told her she felt the same pull and leaned in for a second, much less restrained human kiss. Michael never let her hand go, and was smoothing small patterns in her skin even as they kissed each other breathless.

From all the points of contact, and because of T’Pring’s weakened control from the sheer presence of Michael she could feel some of Michael’s overflowing emotions. Her joy and love all pushed against T’Pring’s mind until she could feel a shiver run down her back from all the sensations.

Michael must have felt it because there was a spark of amusement before she smiled into the kiss and started to pull away. Embarrassed T’Pring hid her face in the crook of her neck for a moment, trying to calm her erratic heart and restore some semblance of control. 

“Come on, I’ll buy you dinner, k’diwa.” Michael murmured into her temple and gently pulled away to look her in the eye. The vulcan endearment with the smile that greeted T’Pring was so full of love she felt like her heart was growing in her side to make more room for loving Michael.

The rest of the date was more reserved as they took their dinner in a quiet corner of the mess hall, trying to keep their hands to themselves and act polite and proper. After dinner they made their way back to T’Pring’s quarter, that was quickly becoming theirs together. 

Even though it was only their third official date there had been many unofficial ones. They spent all their free time together, getting to know each other again, rediscovering and rebuilding their past into a beautiful present and a much better future. 

Michael almost shyly had been bringing trinkets to her room that she carefully placed among T’Pring’s own as if she was afraid to be noticed. She started forgetting her uniform jacket or her off duty clothes there and never coming back for them. She started staying over more and more, citing increasingly more humorous and farfetched reasons for her stay. 

Slowly but surely their lives became intertwined again. One night as they were preparing for bed, washing their teeth side-by-side in the fresher, T’Pring realised that months had gone. She was surprised to realize that she was spending almost every night doing this exact thing and going to bed wrapped around Michael.

That night as they were holding each other and talking about their day T’Pring asked her to move in and Michael just told her with a chuckle, “I’m not even sure i know where my quarters are anymore.” and that was that.

“I promise to love you more each day.” Michael told her quietly as they lay watching the stars outside the window from their bed just before she fell asleep.

“I promise to love you better each day.” T’Pring responded and pulled Michael even closer to let her envelope her completely. 

With a soft smile and happiness warming her from the inside T’Pring waited for Michael’s breaths to even out and go soft with sleep before she buried her face against her back and did the same. 


End file.
